


An exercise in trust

by Rae_Saxon



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: At least they talked a little, F/M, Finally, Humour, It just never works for them, Lots of Post-Missy colony ship trauma talk, They finally get therapy, communication?, except..., with them?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23108251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Saxon/pseuds/Rae_Saxon
Summary: Yaz has caught two feral Time Lords and is now trying to give them the therapy they desperately need. Both aren't willing to listen to her. Or to each other. Which is why they're tied to chairs.
Relationships: The Doctor | Theta Sigma/The Master | Koschei (Doctor Who: Academy Era), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 262





	An exercise in trust

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this, fully intending to write utter crack, and somehow, it turned serious and I just.... let it.

“Okay,” Yaz said, looking calmly at the two people in the room, currently tied to chairs, but still gnawing their teeth at each other like rabid dogs. “And now we do some trust exercises.”

“Do you really think this is going to work?” Ryan whispered, and she shrugged.

“It's how my aunt used to do it. She always said everything can be solved with a bit of trust exercise.”

Graham raised his eyebrows doubtfully.

“I usually say that about breakfast, but I still don't think a breakfast is going to make these two magically get along.”

He nodded towards the Doctor, currently tied up with a very long, multi-coloured scarf they had found in her wardrobe, and the Master, who was tearing at the actual handcuffs they had found in... well... her bedroom.

They were going to tackle _that one_ later.

“We are going to untie you,” Yaz called at them in a louder voice, ignoring her friend's concerns. “If you both promise to behave and listen.”

“Yes,” the Master growled, not even looking at her, his eyes still fixed on the Doctor with raging fire.

“Absolutely,” the Doctor growled only a moment after, her eyes fixed on the Master in exactly the same intensity, both still fighting with their restraints.

Somehow, Yaz wasn't convinced.

“Fine, we'll start with some easy tasks then. Speaking only.”

None of them replied, but she thought she could hear a dog snarl somewhere. She turned to Graham, who was eyeing his stomach with a concerned look, then shook his head softly.

“Must've been them,” he mouthed.

“I'll take that as a yes, then,” Yaz announced, determined not to let anything stop what Ryan and Graham had called a “hopeless plan of disaster”. “You will both look each other in the eyes,” she added, and none of them had a problem with that, alright. They glared at each other savagely, teeth still tightly pressed together. “And tell each other “ _I love you and I understand your anger.”_

Not a single word left their lips, instead the struggling against the restraints got worse, both finally turning away from each other to throw indignant looks to Yaz.

The young woman just shrugged.

“That's how my aunt used to start these things. And I'm telling you here and now, I'm not going to let you leave until you've done it.”

They turned back to each other now, exchanging horrified glances.

“Fine,” the Doctor finally uttered her first coherent word in hours. “Fine. I'll do it.”

She looked at the Master, carefully hiding away all her emotions, then numbly said, “I love you and I understand your anger.”

“That was not very convincing,” Ryan threw in, unhelpfully.

“It wasn't,” Yaz sighed. “But it's a start, at least. Your turn, Master.”

The Time Lord gave her a glance that would've made absolutely everyone reconsider the strength of these handcuffs.

“It's your only way out,” Yaz shrugged, trying her best not to let show how nervous she was, and he growled one last time, rolled his eyes and turned back to the Doctor.

“I love you,” he brought out through gritted teeth. “And I understand your anger.”

“He's sounding slightly sarcastic to me,” Graham pointed out with a mouth full of tuna sandwich.

“To me, too,” the Doctor spit.

“Of course I'm being sarcastic,” the Master shouted at her, slamming against his restraints once more. “ _You're_ angry? You?”

“Well, yes! Coming home to find you've killed our entire race and tried to murder my friends in a crashing plane does give me the.... Hey, wait. Wait.” She turned towards Yaz, narrowing her eyes. “She _wants_ us to talk about this.”

Yaz tried her best to look innocent, but a little smirk was playing around the corners of her lips.

The Master growled again, pinching his mouth shut.

“You don't have to,” Yasmin finally conceded. “If you want to play spiteful children, we can treat you like spiteful children and make you shake hands.”

“Shake hands?” the Doctor replied indignantly. “With him? You know what he did!”

“Shut up, will you?” the Master hissed. “Shaking hands is good, let's shake hands!”

“Just so you know,” Yaz threw in with a roll of her eyes. “Ryan is going to leave and lock the room behind him, leaving us all trapped in here. So me untying you is _not_ going to help you anything.”

Graham looked up from his sandwich, slightly upset.

“Why does _he_ get to leave? Can't I go with him?”

Yaz threw him a dark glare. “No. You're my backup. You stay.”

“Yeah, Graham,” Ryan added with a grin, before taking the key off Yaz and opening the door to step out. “You stay.”

They waited until the door was closed and locked behind him, then stepped towards the two Time Lords to untie them.

The Doctor stood up to stomp on the scarf angrily, while the Master let the handcuffs dangle down in front of his face with a thoughtful frown.

“They're yours,” he commented and both, Graham and Yaz, noticed with alarm the lack of a question in his voice.

“You broke into my bedroom?” the Doctor asked shrilly.

“Ryan is not going to let any of us out before I tell him to,” Yaz repeated in that annoying, reasonable tone of hers that told them she would continue to ignore absolutely everything they said. “So. I want you to give hands, saying the same words again. With a bit more conviction, please!”

They exchanged looks, clearly agreeing to get this over with as soon as possible.

The Doctor stretched out her hand and the Master looked down on it for a second, warily.

“ _Take my hand,”_ he remembered himself saying. Her “ _never_ ” had rung in his ears painfully, had burnt itself deep into his memory.

He looked back up, straight into her eyes as he gave her a mean grin.

“Never,” he breathed and the Doctor's resolve crumbled off her face, turning into shock, as she let her hand sink down again slowly.

“Well, then we're going to spend quite a lot of time in here,” Yaz commented with a theatrical sigh.

With a growl of annoyance, the Doctor leaped forward, grabbing his hand, and hissed “I love you and I understand your anger” right into his face.

The Master tore back his hand. “Hey, that doesn't count!” he called out. “I didn't give her my hand!”

“You wouldn't accept me not wanting to take yours, either,” the Doctor replied with a shrug. “So I suppose this is how we play this.”

“That was a completely different situation,” the Master gave back sulkily. “Maybe if you wouldn't have led me along for 70 years into believing that one day, maybe you...”

“Oh no, you don't!” the Doctor took another step forwards, shoving him back against the wall. “You don't get to talk about that, not a single word, not after having thrown everything out the window that I...”

“That you what, Doctor?” the Master spit, laughing evilly. Funnily enough, being shoved against a wall by the Doctor in rage felt like he had his control back for the first time today. “Taught me? Showed me? By locking me up in a room alone and being gone most of the time? By rejecting me again and again, so you wouldn't get your precious hearts broken by me, while I was trying to earn your praise, meet your impossible standards?”

“You left me to die!” she screamed now, her hand pressing against his chest painfully and he laughed, he couldn't help it, it was simply hilarious, that, wasn't it?

“You left _me_ to die,” he replied calmly, the chuckle still caught in his voice. “Left me dead on the floor, moss growing over me. Wanna see my dress? It's all bloody now. Bit of a shame, really, but then again, I wouldn't want to wear it at the moment, would I?”

“What are you even talking about?” the Doctor wanted to know. Her breath was still heavy, her face still cold, but she let go of him now, and the Master rubbed his chest with a grimace, the spot right beneath his throat, where she had dug her knuckles in.

“He killed me, didn't you know? When I told him I'd go back for _you_. Shot me in the back, deadly blast, no regeneration.”

He grinned.

“Or so he thought, anyway. To be fair, though, I did stab him first.”

Yaz was looking left and right helplessly, hoping for some sort of explanation for what was going on, but Graham simply shrugged and on the Doctor's face was nothing but shock.

“You didn't tell me,” she finally muttered. “You never told me.”

“And why should I?” the Master snorted. “When you were so ready to give up on me. So ready to believe I'd leave you, I'd betray you, I'd have turned back to my old ways.”

“Well, you have...” she mumbled darkly and the Master grinned.

“Course I have. They're all I have. All that's ever been loyal to me. And you...” he shook his head, still pretending to be amused, still pretending he couldn't feel his hearts aching. “... You paid for your life with it. How does that feel, Doctor?”

She stared at him blankly for quite some while, then stepped forward again, her hand outstretched and the Master flinched slightly, expecting her to press him against the wall again, but instead she just stood there, her fingers trembling lightly, as she held her hand out to him.

“Please,” he snorted. “I told you. Never.”

“But I understand,” she promised. “I do. I understand now. You're angry, you're hurt, you think I've given up on you...”

“Don't. Don't do that. That thing where you pretend it's all in my head, that you hadn't really given up, don't _gaslight_ me, Doctor.”

She let her hand sink slowly.

“What would you have thought?” she whispered. “After all this time trying, what would you have thought if you'd seen yourself stand there, with another evil plan up your sleeve, another attempt of killing all I hold dear?”

The Master laughed, a cold, hollow laugh, his head thrown towards the ceiling, before he turned back to her with a blank expression, all laughter instantly dying on his face.

“All I wanted to be was something you held dear. Turns out I never had a chance.”

“Okay,” Yaz threw in before the Doctor could reply. “I don't think this is productive. I think it's... it's actually very fair for someone not to accept an apology, so we will... move on to the next exercise and maybe come back to it later.”

They exchanged dark glares, then turned back to Yaz at the exact same moment, both having completely forgotten she and Graham were still in the room.

“You both seemed to have felt betrayed by the other,” she expanded wisely. “So I feel like we need to rebuild some trust, here. There's a very simple exercise humans use quite a lot. One of you is simply going to let themselves fall into the other's-”

“No,” the Doctor and the Master said in exactly the same moment.

Yaz rolled her eyes.

“He's a murderer!” the Doctor called out, “he murdered my entire planet, you want me to fall into his arms? He'll let me fall out of spite!”

“She would never catch me!” the Master talked over her, barely listening in his eagerness to get his point across. “She always plays nice, then abandons and betrays me, you want me to put my faith in someone who said 'forever' and then ran?”

“Lots to unpack there,” Graham threw in with casual tone. Yasmin gave him a look of pure despair.

“It's about putting these worries behind and building new trust,” she replied. “If someone let you fall one hundred times...”

“If someone lets you fall 100 times, you're not giving them a 101st chance to do it again!” the Master called and the Doctor, for once having to agree, nodded her head eagerly.

“Doctor!” Yaz called, her voice raised slightly. “You'll start. Stand in front of the Master, close your eyes and simply let yourself fall.”

“Why me?” the Doctor replied in disbelief. “That's not fair! I'm much more trustworthy than he is, why can't he...”

“Because we have leverage over you!” Yasmin called out, beckoning Graham to step closer. He did so, holding in his hands.... Oh God, they really had broken into her bedroom.

“That's my Fez!” she called “Let go of my fez!”

He let a pocket knife snap, holding the sharp blade against the hat.

“That's hardly trust-building,” she replied, turning around with her arms crossed before her chest, so that she stood with her back to the Master and therefore didn't notice his eyes flinching back to the knife again and again in calculation.

“He'll let me fall, you know,” she muttered, bracing herself to let herself fall backwards – And get a horrible headache out of it. “He doesn't care about my fez.”

“Yeah well, we couldn't exactly... Uhm... figure out _what_ he cares about. If there's anything... at all.”

The Master smiled smugly.

“His clothes!” the Doctor replied with a eye-roll. “All his ridiculous costumes and disguises and robes. He's got a thing for them.”

“Will you shut up!” the Master hissed and she turned her head slightly, just enough for him to see her mean little smirk.

“Okay, let's do this,” Yaz replied with a sigh. “Before I get a migraine. Doctor, you let yourself fall on 1...2... 3... _Now_.”

He had planned to let her fall, he really had. But there was something about her hesitant step backwards before she simply let go, something about the way she stretched her arms, just enough for him to slip his right beneath her arm pits, and before he could think, before he could even consider letting her fall, he had instinctively caught her, holding her close to his chest, his hearts racing a bit quicker than they should for something as simple as this little task.

The Doctor had opened her eyes, blinking up at him in stunned confusion and for a second, their eyes met.

“I'd never let you fall,” the Master mumbled, his lips barely moving to bring the words out. “That was always you.”

He helped her swing back to her legs and she turned around to him, looking sheepish.

“Very good,” Yaz nodded with a smile. “See that wasn't nearly as bad as you thought it would be. Now we switch roles.”

The Master didn't move, his eyes narrowing warily and the Doctor sighed.

“I won't let you fall,” she promised, stepping behind him. “Promise.”

“You always say that,” the Master replied without looking at her. “You're a bloody hypocrite, though.”

“Well, I mean it now. Just... trust me.”

“I trust no one,” the Master growled. “And no one has ever given me any reason to.”

“And if you won't let yourself believe in anyone, no one's ever going to,” she replied sadly. “Come on. I got surprised today, maybe so will you?”

“I don't like surprises,” he grumbled and she grinned.

“Yeah, you do. You liked them alright when I stood beneath your window, throwing stones at them. And you liked it quite a lot when I sneaked into your bedroom to put these handcuffs to use...”

The Master turned towards Yaz and Graham, eyes narrowed evilly, daring them to say a word, but they simply exchanged a single look, saying nothing.

“That was ages ago.”

The Doctor grinned.

“Actually, I think the handcuffs thing was just...”

“Oh God, whenever it was, _please_ , don't tell us,” Graham called over to her. “We'd rather not want to know.”

The Doctor flinched, apparently having forgotten about them all over again.

“Come on,” she muttered, her voice now lowered so they wouldn't hear. “Just once in your life, Kosch, have a little faith in someone who's not you.”

He closed his eyes then, the old nickname from these new lips vibrating in his mind and, in quite a moment of determination, he let the feelings it conjured take over, letting himself fall backwards. All he knew, right now, was that he wanted to be in the person's arms he had once trusted enough to let them use that name, let them into his mind, let them feel and know his deepest thoughts and desires.

His hearts made a leap and the second he was falling freely suddenly felt like an hour, drawn out in time. He didn't mind so terribly much, falling, he'd done it before. It was the vulnerability that came with trust, that one second of putting your faith in someone who might as well kick it with their feet and laugh at him for ever having done so.

But he felt the Doctor hands catch him, gentle, but strong grip around his waist as she helped him back up and he suppressed a little shake when he returned back to his own two feet.

They looked at each other then and he wondered if she felt it too, the suddenly never-ending stream of childhood memories that were running through his mind. God, they had buried bodies together, literal and metaphorical bodies and here they were, realising they were utterly unable to let the other fall, no matter what they threw at each other's heads.

“A great start!” Yaz interrupted his thoughts and both Time Lords flinched, before turning towards her, then back towards one another, eyes wide in terror.

“ _Start_?” he heard her, in his mind, and almost shuddered at how good it felt, how familiar, how right.

Time Lord's minds were never meant to not be shared. It let hollowness spread, loneliness grow and isolation flourish. The Doctor and the Master had spent their whole childhood in each other's minds, only to find, one day, that no one would ever be able to replace the other's presence.

“ _How much... how much more have they planned?”_

“ _They're your friends,_ ” the Master replied dryly, while sinking a little further into her mind, carefully, at first, trying not to leave trails, trying not to let her know that he was entering, how much he craved to dive into her, feel her all around him again.

Until he could feel it all in her mind, too, just as over-powering, just as desperate.

He swallowed hard.

“Next, we are going to pair up. Graham with the Master and me with the Doctor. And then we'll...”

“Hey,” Graham called. “Why do I have to take the Master? This is your insane plan, I think you should...”

The Master send a mental image of the knife Graham had in his pockets to the Doctor, who gave him the thought-equivalent of a head shake, and instead sent him the knowledge of where Yaz kept her phone.

“ _How long do you need to crack the password?_ ” she asked and the Master grinned smugly, watching the Doctor's pets debate, while searching for the exact spot of the phone.

“ _About 5.6 seconds,”_ he offered. “ _It's probably something lame.”_

_“Good enough, I can hold them off for that long. When you have, text Ryan to let us out and we'll go for it.”_

“ _Got'cha.”_

They didn't need a countdown, not with their minds intertwined like this. Within seconds, they had executed their plan, leaving behind a shocked Graham, an angry Yaz, a smashed phone and Ryan, standing at the door, not sure why he was getting a lot of blame for doing exactly as he was told.

They were still giggling when they had reached the Master's TARDIS, leaning against the door, their laughter growing, even through their breathlessness.

“Just like when we were kids,” the Doctor finally grinned. “Except Borusa really was more of a match.”

“Because he knew we'd have to come back eventually,” the Master grinned. “He always waited in your bedroom with our parents.”

The Doctor grinned back, still holding her hips in laughter.

“Which is why we constantly sent your room mate to them and made out in your bed instead.”

They looked at each other, their laughter turning into a last, nervous giggle, then stilling completely. They Master raised his arm, where the handcuffs were still dangling from.

“Still got those,” he announced with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

The Doctor grinned. "I love you and I accept your invitation. And... even trust you enough to use these on me."

The Master raised his eyebrows.

"Love me, huh?"

She shrugged. "Yeah. Can't you tell?"

He could. In her mind like this, for the first time in far, far too long, the first time since she had shut herself off to him, he could feel love and desire and trust and craving, all flooding her mind uncontrolled and completely chaotic, just as he knew her.

"Rarely," he replied, voice soft. "You never let me know."

"I'll rectify that, then," the Doctor smiled, stepping closer for a soft kiss on his cheek, but her eyes were glowing, burning through him, clearly asking for more.

The Master felt his mouth go dry.

"Tied up, attending my every wish?" he asked and she laughed.

"If they're reasonable."

"I promise. They all involve you. Very alive, too."

Just to be sure she got the message, he sent her a few mental images of that and she shuddered pleasantly.

“Well, quick then,” the Doctor grinned. “Before my parents find us.”

And she ran down the corridor where she knew the Master's bedroom was, him right behind her, their minds humming in mutual excitement.


End file.
